Slumdog Millionaire
Watched this tonight and – against my preconceptions – found it to be an excellent film. I can understand why it’s phenomenal success may have caused mixed feelings in India but that underscores the universality of the film’s appeal. Some plot contrivance but impressed nonetheless.
deichmans:
April 11th, 2009 at 4:18 am
Agree – we rented it this week at a RedBox, and kept it five days (unpacking and sleep usually interfered with CINCHOUSE’s viewing opportunities, so I watched it three times). A dear friend of ours (a native of Sri Lanka) said it’s an accurate depiction of the caste system in India, and life in the slums. When she watched the movie at a theater, some older caucasian ladies sitting near her were heard to remark "Oh, that would never happen!"
zen:
April 11th, 2009 at 4:27 am
"Oh, that would never happen!"
.
Spoken like a person who had never visited a shantytown. I’ve visited one, in Mexico, and it was an eye opener. I can only imagine what one must be like in India or Brazil outside a major city where the scale is far larger.
Babu Syed:
April 11th, 2009 at 10:10 am
read full review of slumdog millioanire at http://babusyed.blogspot.com/
tdaxp:
April 11th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Negative preconceptions, even after the positive tdaxp review? O ye of little faith!
zen:
April 11th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Ha! I resist following the crowd 🙂
Lexington Green:
April 11th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Saw it on the big screen. Worth seeing it that way.
.
A terrific movie. Even the implausible stuff works because it is a Dickensian tale in which coincidences are tolerable. Not quite to the realm of "magic realism" but rather one foot in the world of brutal reality and one in the land of fable where happy endings can happen.
.
Hard to watch the three kids living on the street if you have kids of your own.
morgan:
April 11th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
I spent some time in Crossroads, a violent shanty town outside Cape Town some years ago. It was, as Zen said, "an eye opener." Our inner city ghettos are five star gold coast residences compared to Crossroads. These places are Petri dishes for 4 GW. The near future in nation states–many in name only–housing these slums will generate a lot of problems for the states hosting them.
Dave Schuler:
April 11th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
I found it terribly, terribly sad. I watched it and I’m glad I watched it but I’m not particularly interested in seeing it again.
Shaunak:
April 13th, 2009 at 10:55 am
The film is so full of stereotypes it made me cringe. It’s a shame so many around the world found it to be <fill in some good feeling here> … now Mumbai will have Slumdog tours and the daily struggle for life that these people go through will be reduced to a scene in a stage show!
zen:
April 13th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
The movie was indeed sad in some aspects and probably stereotyped ( I say "probably" because I am not well versed on the cultural "inside baseball" of Indian society to catch all of them) more or less in the same way that Gangs of New York offered stylized stereotypes of the Anglo protestants and Irish Catholics of New York’s teeming mid-19th century slums. I could see this storyline being used in other nations or times very easily, including in the U.S.
democratic core:
April 13th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I’m not sure I understand the sadness. I thought the dance number at the end was a brilliant Brechtian device that eliminated any catharsis my making it clear that this was not real, and instead enabled you to think about globalization. I found it very exciting. Z – re GONY, it is just the opposite, in that the somewhat cheesy ending (NY montage and worst U-2 song ever) undermined what could have been an interesting social study (if it had had even the slightest connection to historical accuracy). DD-L, however, was brilliant.
Ammar, Tommy, Connor, Savanah, Anna, Livvi, Jake, Chris, Vince, Gabby:
April 13th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Amazing movie.
I <3 Danny Boyle!
Have you seen 28 days/weeks later?
Amazing satires…
I <3 Mr. S!!!
-Savanah